Really good VB.net tutorial?

[Electric Rain]

The majority of this post is just rambling. You don't have to read it at all if you don't want to. My main question is simply "Where can I find a good VB.net tutorial?" I would like to hear your feedback on my project detailed in the lower half of my rambling, though.


[rambling]

I'm a webmaster, so I started out learning HTML and a little later CSS once I finally realized how awesome it was... now I'm quite well versed in those. Then I started learning Javascript, since I needed to add some dynamic elements to my sites. I wouldn't consider myself a pro, but I know my way around Javascript pretty well now, and I can freehand just about everything. Then, I needed to learn PHP and MySQL for the purposes of databases and server-side processing. This has been really fun for me, although it's pretty hard... The BenHeck Chat script that I wrote is one of the more sophisticated PHP scripts I've written (which is still relatively simple), and I've only created simple MySQL databases as well. I'm still a novice with these languages, but I'm slowly learning more about them as I need to.

Point: Do you notice a pattern? These are all web scripting/markup languages; and I've had to learn them all out of necessity. Just once, I'd like to learn something because I want to learn it and not because I have to. I'm getting sick of websites, and I want to be able to write desktop applications. I originally wanted to start learning C++, but then I saw how friggin' hard it was, and decided maybe I'd start with Visual Basic as my first true "programming language" instead... just to get my foot in the door.

Then I discovered that Visual Basic is basically dieing, since M$ dropped support for it and is replacing it with VB.net (stupid .net framework...). "Alright then, I guess I'll learn that instead," I said to myself. News to me: That's not the simplest language to learn either! Programming languages really dwarf scripting languages, don't they? Well, I need help, anyway. So, does anyone know of a really good VB.net tutorial? The tizag.com tutorials were extremely helpful to me when I was learning PHP and MySQL. They're very thorough, and they detail and explain every bit of code they write to show you exactly what it does. Is there anything like that for VB.net?

You know what's funny... this is actually kind of for business too. I mean, I've always wanted to learn something that would allow me to write desktop applications, but what finally pushed me to start looking into it was the need for a language that would allow me to communicate with my computer's COM and Parallel ports as well as PHP pages on my server. It's for a project (which is going to be totally SWEET) for a device I'm going to attempt to build and sell to one of our clients.

It's pretty much just an automatic ticket exchanger. You know, those little cheap tickets like the ones you get at the fair or "redemption tickets" that you get from winning games at the arcade (Remember the arcade?) that you can buy over-priced stuff with? But, it needs to accept cash and credit cards. Customers can just walk up to it, swipe their credit card and define the number of tickets they'd like, or simply have it spit out tickets as they insert cash. There will also be a small serial LCD screen to display simple messages for the user. The bill validation and ticket dispenser are probably going to be interfaced via the Parallel port, and the LCD screen by the serial (COM) port. The credit card swiper will just interface to the PS/2 port and look like a keyboard to the computer. The user buttons (which will just be MORE and LESS buttons and CONFIRM and CANCEL buttons) will also probably just be a keyboard hack of some kind. Also, it has to interface will PayPal, probably via PHP pages that will be stored on my server, for credit card processing. So... as you can see, I need a versatile language for this, and it's not exactly "practical" to interface with I/O ports using PHP. So, anyone got a better idea on how to do this? Any insight, possibly?

Bill Validator
Ticket Dispenser
LCD
Card Swiper (Or something like that; probably not that exact model.)
Motherboard that will act as the "heart" of the system

[/rambling]

[Electric Rain]

So um... bump, and also, can someone move this to Forum 42? I didn't really mean to post it here, and nobody's looking at it either.

I guess it belongs in Development Center more than anywhere, but even less people go there than they do TQ&A! Move it wherever you (whatever mod may be reading this) think it should be (FORUM 42 PLEASE!!!), but I don't actually think it should be here, either way.

Edit: Thanks Bic!

[Electric Rain]

You guys suck.

Edit: ^ Joke.

[Fenrir]

To be honest, I've never used a VB.NET tutorial. I could C&P a list of links to resources that I've kept records of, things like interfacing with ADOX to create Access files, Cut/Copy/Paste Menu fixes, as well as libraries like DirectShowNet, SlimDX and DotNetZipLib, etc; but I was an old VB6 user and picked up .NET in the course I'm just now finishing.
Just do a Google search and take your pick, really.

You mentioned C++, which I have a link for. The book (available free online) teaches the C++ languages and explains what's happening on the lower levels.
VB.NET is more of a RAD tool, you'd gain a far greater computer science backing (and have a better shot at interfacing with ports, you're not going to do anything low-level through the .NET Framework) from learning C++.

Anyway, I don't know what sort of software/drivers come with the products you plan on implementing in your system; hopefully your job is as simple as plugging in the devices, installing drivers, and just interfacing with the drivers. Otherwise, I have a fair bit of assembly knowledge, but I'd by lying if I said I knew how to write a device driver...

[Electric Rain]

The interfacing itself shouldn't be hard at all; the hardware doesn't come with drivers. They're meant to be used in systems that aren't even as sophisticated as computers, so their communication protocols are quite simple.

[Fenrir]

The interfacing itself shouldn't be hard at all; the hardware doesn't come with drivers. They're meant to be used in systems that aren't even as sophisticated as computers, so their communication protocols are quite simple.

Well, firstly, you should probably forget about VB.NET. VB.NET is used for developing programs which run on the .NET Framework, which is sort-of like the Java Virtual Machine, except only available on Microsoft platforms. The idea of the .NET Framework, or more specifically the CLR, like the JVM, is to abstract the mechanisms of the operating system (ie. the Win32 API, device drivers and APIs, etc) into a standard interface. The average VB.NET programmer isn't even meant to think about communication protocols of hardware devices, or interfacing with ports in general.

I did find a link to a resource on parallel port programming from VB.NET, but this is really the sort of thing you should be using C++ for. It was designed for systems programming and will give you a finer degree of control over data, and you can still use Inpout32.dll with it. Hell, you might need to write some x86 Assembly for this one.

I do think you're setting the bar a bit high for yourself with this project, though. Try that Steve Heller book I linked to, it's best that you learn to write algorithms first and get a proper grounding in computer science.
In a quirky way, I daresay that VB.NET is a bit more difficult to pick up than C++, since it throws you straight into Object Oriented Programming.


Anyway, you'll need compilers and the like.
Steve Heller links to Borland's compiler, but I'm going to suggest Digital Mars, mainly because it's less of a pain in the arse to set up. Just click the C/C++ compiler for Win32 link, download the compiler and STLPort, unzip both to the same directory, then modify the line starting with INCLUDE in dm\bin\sc.ini to be...

Code: Select all

INCLUDE="%@P%\..\stlport\stlport";"%@P%\..\include";"%@P%\..\mfc\include";%INCLUDE%

...and you're set.
There are a lot of IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) flying around that are compatible with Digital Mars C/C++, but I'd just recommend Notepad++. It features C++ syntax highlighting (among several other languages).

If you still want to try VB.NET, you can get the Express edition free here. If nothing else, the Visual Studio IDE makes writing VB.NET code pretty cruisy.

[zzattack]

Trying VB.NET as a first compiled language is a decent option I think. It's a language of this time, there are lots of resources available to get you started and the IDE is awesome. Myself I'd go for C# although it is a lot like VB.NET, hell there are even some (not too well working) code converters to convert between C# and VB.NET code.

About resources: get a book. Not online tutorials. They're usually written to get to the point fast, and they are far from complete (i.e. not covering every subject out there), so you'll need to read from lots of different sources, which have the annoying habit of contradicting each other. There's not really a book I'd recommend because I haven't read one myself, I learned most of my C# from MSDN, Google and the C++/CLI variants that I already knew. The languages C# / VB.NET don't really need to be understood to create amazing applications, but knowledge of the .NET framework certainly aids here. That's also why I must recommend Visual Studio 2008 to do your code editing: the amazing intellisense and refactoring tools help you to get code running in no time, even if you don't know half the namespace you're working in.

Myself I started with C++. I skipped C and still don't like it, although I have to use it for school a lot. After I think a year or two I got a good hang of it, but realised that everytime I had to write an application, I spent more time reading through MSDN to find the Win32-way of doing something. I still hate reading Win32 code. I couldn't be bothered with MFC or ATL either. But, I wanted fancy GUIs created in 5 minutes, hundreds of tools wrapped in static classes, and very helpfull IDE. Then I stumbled upon C++/CLI, which is "managed C++ with .NET capabilities". That sounded so awesome, I dived into it immediately only to hate the mixture of native and managed code, and especially, interop. I've now switched to C# as my main development language on the desktop. There's also a linux implementation of the .NET framework called Mono, so the argument of JAVA being a better choice because of cross-platform portability is only half valid.

[gever]

try this tutorial , simple and step by step

http://vb.net-informations.com

gever